Is there a role for food forests in New Zealand forestry?

Authors: Lania Holt, Karen Bayne, Oscar Montes de Oca, Richard Yao and Andrew Pugh
Publication: New Zealand Journal of Forestry, Volume N.Z.J.For. 2025, Issue N.Z.J.For. 69(4) 2025, pp Pages 20-29, Feb 2025
Publisher: New Zealand Institute of Forestry

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Abstract: Over the past couple of years there has been renewed interest in agroforestry research, primarily driven by the unrealised potential of the role of food forests in New Zealand. A workshop with leading research institutes brought together a multi-discipline group of scientists across forestry, agriculture, horticulture, land care, food research and academia, to take a deep dive into the potential of food forests. This was followed by an online workshop with a range of practitioners that included foresters, farmers, Māori landowners, lifestyle block owners, and applied researchers and policy people. The position from these two workshops was that a cooperative system of food forests, in all their eventualities, would add resilience to national food security, and be potentially transformative to the forestry sector, lending itself to new silvi-agricultural methods, new local market possibilities, and new community relationships. With this insight came a call from workshop participants about the need for definitions. In a targeted iterative exercise, a forestry research focus group has formulated a definition of food forests to apply in forestry in New Zealand. In this paper we put forward this definition of food forests, outline the perceived benefits to the forestry sector to develop a food forest system, and provide a food forests lexicon with terms used in this paper. The aim is to support communication across the different disciplines and scales to foster the development of food forests in New Zealand.

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